Cowardly Lion (Fictitious character) -- Juvenile fiction; Fantasy literature; Oz (Imaginary place) -- Juvenile fiction
"Save me! Save me, or I shall spoil!" he cried in heart-rending tones.
Notta was so moved by his evident distress that he impulsively started
to jump out of the bus, forgetting the tie between himself and the
Cowardly Lion. He therefore got a terrible wrench that twisted his fish
head sideways, so he could not see at all. While Bob was straightening
this out, the jar-men dragged their companion from beneath the feather
wheels, and a simply enormous fellow came running down the street. In
one hand he had a pad and in the other a pencil.
"Looks like the Prime Pickle," chattered Snorer, as the jar-man began
scribbling on his pad.
"You have broken the peace," read Notta, as the angry official held up
his pad. He was magnificently attired under his jar and was evidently a
person of some importance. He had, however, been preserved by pickling
and was of an unhealthy shade of green.
Notta leaned out of the bus and, seizing the pencil and pad, wrote
back, "He broke himself, save the pieces."
The rage of the Preserves, as they read these words, increased to a
perfect fury. One, evidently a relation of the broken man, snatched off
his lid and cried shrilly, "You'll be minced for this!"
The Prime Preserve again scratched furiously on his pad, "You are under
arrest. Come with me," directed the pad, when he held it up.
"This is because I forgot the rules," sighed Notta. "If I had been more
polite this would not have happened. Shall we fly or follow?"
"Let's follow," rumbled the Cowardly Lion. "We can fly any time, and
I'd like to see all the Preserves while I'm about it, for I think
Dorothy will enjoy hearing about them."
Notta ran the Flyaboutabus slowly and carefully down the glass street
after the solemn jar-men, the rest of the population following at a
safe distance. Bob's eyes grew larger and larger and when a preserved
dog ran briskly in front of the bus he gave a shout of glee.
"I think Oz is the funniest place in the world, don't you, Nick?" cried
the little boy merrily.
"Well," chirruped Snorer, "as I was never any place else, I can hardly
say. Look, look! There goes a canned cat!" And so it was, as canned a
cat as you'd ever want to see.
But right here their guide turned the corner and they found themselves
in the presence of another Queen. They knew she was a Queen, for on
the pad held up for their inspection the guide had written, "Preserva
the Great." Notta stopped the bus before the low glass throne and they
stared in wonder at her Majesty. Preserva seemed as much surprised as
they.
"Well, I'll be jellied!" wheezed the Queen, taking off her lid and
thrusting out a moist head. Bob thought she need not have said this,
for she was jellied already--her face and royal robes being a quivery
and delicious pink.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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